The Onondaga County Agriculture Council wants you to buy local produce. A campaign has kicked off this June to encourage more people to spend food dollars on items grown in Onondaga County.
Brian Reeves, of Reeves Farm in Baldwinsville, says getting people to buy local is in part a matter of getting the word out.
“Sometimes I think it’s a lack of information. If a consumer knew more often that it was local or fresher they would prefer it,” Reeves says.
The Onondaga County Agriculture Council is hoping to get more people to buy food products grown in Onondaga County through a new advertising campaign.
That means you’ll see stickers on food, signs in store windows and TV ads and billboards this summer booming the message that agriculture produces a wide variety of products in Onondaga County and is a big driver of the local economy.
The idea is to emphasize the importance of farmland in Onondaga County, and the wide variety of fresh products it produces. Onondaga County Legislature Chairman Ryan McMahon says that’s an important message.
"We have 700 farms in the county with a $152 million economic impact. It’s a huge piece of our local economy. And we’ve seen success with companies moving into the community, like Agrana, and other companies expanding, like Ultra Dairy, because we have a niche here and we’re very good at it,” McMahon says.
McMahon believes there is always room for growth and expansion within Onondaga County agriculture and that it may play a larger economic role in the future.
